The computer implemented method and system disclosed herein, in general, relates to health care services. More particularly, the computer implemented method and system disclosed herein relates to managing health care and obtaining analytical insights using information related to health care in a collaborative environment.
In the United States, there are approximately 38,000 assisted living facilities (ALFs) providing housing and supervision, or assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs) to about 975,000 people. The average age of residents in ALFs is 85 years and, on an average, the ALF residents are on six different prescriptions per month.
In ALFs, medication is often administered by unlicensed assistive personnel who operate outside of a nurse-delegation model but are entrusted with great responsibilities including, for example, medication profiling, medication monitoring, identification of drug-drug, drug-food and drug-lab interaction, and manual coordination with a resident's pharmacy, physician and family. This issue is further exacerbated by the fact that there is nearly an 80% turnover rate for these personnel. An estimated 106,000 fatal adverse drug events (ADEs) occur annually in the US. ALF residents tend to suffer from multiple chronic conditions, visit multiple physicians, and obtain medications from multiple pharmacies locally, by mail order, via the internet, etc. This puts them at a higher risk for adverse drug events (ADEs). A January 2008 survey conducted by the Center for Excellence in Assisted Living (CEAL) showed that the most likely types of medication errors include (i) medication out of stock or not delivered to an assisted living facility (ALF) due to dispensing errors, (ii) medication given at the wrong time due to administering errors, (iii) medication given at the wrong dose due to administering errors, and (iv) wrong medication sent by the pharmacy due to dispensing errors.
Apart from the harm of ADEs to residents, assisted living facility (ALF) managers are deeply concerned about the potential liability of managing resident medications. A single medication error can result in over a $150,000 claim, and professional liability insurance can range between about 10% to about 15% of service costs. Hence, there is a need for a system that reduces adverse drug events (ADEs) for residents, improves compliance for staff, and lowers liability costs for ALFs.
Furthermore, assisted living facility (ALF) residents constitute a large cohort of high medication users whose medication usage is managed and logged on a daily basis. Their medication prescription, administration, usage and compliance information can provide invaluable research insights with significant potential benefits to multiple stakeholders including seniors, assisted living industries, pharmaceuticals, physicians, health care payers, government organizations, etc. Therefore, there is a need for a system or an application that facilitates harvesting of ALF medication data for research purposes.
Hence, in view of the foregoing, there is a long felt but unresolved need for a computer implemented method and system that manages health care and obtains analytical insights related to health care in a collaborative environment.